A Ghost Story-the Prequel
Copyright© 2025 by A Bad Attitude
Chapter 2: Marilyn Merrill
I had just come downstairs when I noticed the wagon sitting in front of the house. Lottie was in the kitchen making breakfast for her daughter and my two boys. I am 6 months pregnant with our third baby and I am still throwing up every morning, food is the last thing on my mind.
“Lottie! Come quick!” I shouted.
Together we went to the wagon and found my husband. He was talking out of his head as we carried him into the house. What is he talking about? Yankee gold? While Lottie cleaned his wounds I went out to the wagon. The first time I saw it I could not believe my eyes. Sacks of $20 gold coins! I had never seen that much money in my life!
John had told me to hide it so I picked up the first sack. Quickly I realized that I should not try to do this alone. I went back in the house and sat with Lottie and John. When he went to sleep, I asked Lottie to help me.
We hauled all 25 sacks down to the root cellar and put them in the safe we had hidden before the war. Then Lottie went in to check on John as I led the mules to the barn and un-hitched them from the wagon. I turned them out into a pasture that had not had an animal in it in over two years. There was a river at the back of the pasture, so they had water.
Two days later John died. I did not bury him in the family cemetery. He already had a grave there. He is buried in the soft ground next to the river. The wagon was chopped up and used for firewood. We killed one of the mules and butchered him for meat. The first meat (beside chicken and fish) we had in ages! Over the next two years we ate the other three mules.
It was a month after John died that a Union calvary troop rode up. Lottie and I met the young 2nd Lt. on the front porch.
“Mrs. Merrill?”
“Yes.”
“I’m looking for your husband, Captain John Merrill. Do you know where he is at?”
While Lottie waited on the front porch, this young Lt. and I, along with his Sgt., walked over to the cemetery. I pointed to his grave.
“He was wounded at Shiloh and died soon afterwards here in the house.”
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